Cyprus-Forum.com

[Bill]

Bill,Cyprus was better off under British rule than it was under the Venetians & the Ottoman Empire.If it wasn't for the British,there wouldn't even be a country called Cyprus today.

The British Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri & Dhekelia are legally British colonies,as are the Falkland Islands & Gibraltar.


Aidan.

Wow ~ what a statement :shock:

I'll leave the reply to the Cypriot members of the forum ~ as I'm sure they can put it more eloquently than I can

[Nikitas]

Expat Kiwi said:

"If it wasn't for Turkey's 'illegal' intervention, there would be no Turkish Cypriot presence left on that island, and Cyprus would be part of the Hellenic Republic. Nikos Sampson made that VERY clear. "

Really! When did he make this clear, by what statement and what actions? What I recall seeing him say on BBC was that Cyprus would remain independent and that union with Greece was out of the question. There was no hostile action against TCs until after the start of the invasion and it was more than matched by the other side.

The SBAs BC are not colonies! They are military installations established under the 1960 treaty of establishment and rent is supposed to be paid for them, which Britain never paid on the pretext of the intercommunal strife, thus laying itself open to a challenge on the right to maintain the SBAs.

[Nikitas]

Do not know if we were better off under the Venetians of the Ottomans or the British. The FACT beyond dispute is that after Britain left the standard of living on the island skyrocketed. Today Cyprus per capita income is at 89 per cent of the EU average. Under the British we were a captive market, allowed to buy only British goods and export only to countries chosen by our British masters.

Do not judge the situation in the colonies by what it was like in NZ or Australia, or Canada, which were Anglosaxon countries and not real colonies. The primary concern of the British, as proven by their official records, was to increase tax revenues and invest as little as possible in Cyprus. That is why we had less than 1000 telephones on the whole island in 1960 when the population was 650 000 people.

[BC Numismatics]

Nikitas,the S.B.A.s ARE colonies,as there are villages located within the borders of the S.B.A.s.The residents of the villages have dual citizenship of both Cyprus & Great Britain.

Here's a link; http://www.sba.mod.uk .

Aidan.

[Nikitas]

Read the fine print re the SBAs, and why they are called SBAs and not colonies. They exist by virtue of agreements signed by Britain, Greece, Turkey and the RoC, and their existence dates from 1960. The status is different from a colony and somewhat peculiar under EU rules, which explains Britain's eagerness to insert clauses in the EU constitution legitimising the SBA regime.

[Bill]

Nikitas,the S.B.A.s ARE colonies,as there are villages located within the borders of the S.B.A.s.The residents of the villages have dual citizenship of both Cyprus & Great Britain.

Here's a link; http://www.sba.mod.uk .

Aidan.

Lets say this again shall we the military bases and the area around them is described by the British government as crown land and NOT a British colony ~ there is a difference.

Bill

[BC Numismatics]

Bill,the S.B.A.s ARE colonies,as there are an indigenous population who live there.They are united under a common military administration though.All British colonies are,in theory,British Crown land.

The title of the S.B.A.s' viceregal representative is the Administrator,which is the same rank as a Governor.

They also have their own court system,which includes the right to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (a right that New Zealanders also possessed until our braindead politicians decided to abolish this without our consent back in 2003).

Aidan.

[Nikitas]

Are you suggesting her BC that Britain is funding the education, social services etc affecting the residents in villages withing the SBAs? Think about it and then tell us again that the SBAs are colonies.

[Kikapu]

Kosovo gears up for independence move
Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:57pm EST .

By Matt Robinson

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo Albanians said on Monday they would start immediate talks with Western backers about an independence declaration, but Russia said unilateral recognition could trigger a "chain reaction" of problems around the world.

With a U.N. deadline for agreement on the fate of Serbia's breakaway province expiring on Monday, Serbia said it would try to seek an International Court of Justice opinion on the legitimacy of a declaration of independence.

In Brussels, EU ministers said they had come closer to agreeing a common position on independence for Kosovo.

"From today, Kosovo begins consultations with key international partners to coordinate the next steps to a declaration of independence," Skender Hyseni, spokesman of Kosovo's negotiating team with Serbia, said in Pristina.

"Kosovo and the people of Kosovo urgently need clarity on their future ... The institutions of Kosovo will deliver that clarity very soon."

He said a declaration would come "much earlier than May", referring to one rumored timeframe.

In Washington, the State Department echoed the urgency and reaffirmed it backed moves to help Kosovo towards supervised independence with provisions to protect its Serb minority.

"U.N. MUST DECIDE"

Serbia, firmly against independence, insisted that only the United Nations had the authority to determine Kosovo's future.

"That process belongs to the U.N. Security Council and to all countries that are members of the U.N., not to the EU," Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said on the sidelines of a conference in Belgrade about EU accession.

President Boris Tadic told state television that Serbia would urgently ask the Security Council to request an opinion from the International Court of Justice, "asking whether the independence of Kosovo would be legal".

Even if the divided Council agreed to send such a request, the Court could take years to issue an opinion, which would in any case be advisory and non-binding.

Kosovo, which has a 90-percent Albanian majority, has been in legal limbo under U.N. administration since NATO bombing in 1999 pushed out Serbian forces to end ethnic cleansing.

Serbia's main ally on the issue is Russia, able to veto any recognition of Kosovo by the U.N. Security Council.

Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in Nicosia that a unilateral declaration would "create a chain reaction throughout the Balkans and other areas of the world".

Later, after meeting EU officials in Brussels, he said Russia would pre-empt any moves by Western powers to win U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's backing for the view that U.N. Resolution 1244 could remain valid even after independence.

The resolution is the basis for international supervision of Kosovo's protectorate status, and could help the EU in its aim of taking over police and justice tasks in Kosovo from the United Nations, while NATO troops remain in place.

"The institution of the secretary-general ... should not in anyway be compromised, and we will do what we can to ensure that is the case," Lavrov said.

EU STILL DIVIDED

The European Union's internal divisions paralyzed its attempts to halt the Balkan wars of the 1990s. This time it is seeking a unified position to try to encourage Serbia and Russia to accept independence for Kosovo, and to enable the EU to take responsibility for helping to maintain order there.

But at least three nations -- Spain, Cyprus and Slovakia -- blocked agreement at talks in Brussels on Monday.

"We are in support of a negotiated settlement ... and would not like to see anything undermining the international legal basis," Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Markoullis said.

Spain's Miguel Angel Moratinos said: "Never in history has a unilateral declaration of independence been positive."

Slovakia also said it would find it hard to recognize an independent Kosovo, though Foreign Minister Jan Kubis said the EU could still deploy a 1,600-strong police mission there.

The EU executive would also like to appoint a civilian representative in a supervisory role in Kosovo.

French Secretary of State for Europe Jean-Pierre Jouyet said he expected some EU capitals to take time to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty but insisted all would back the mission, adding: "That will be the yardstick on which unity will be measured."

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation by telephone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, Russian news agencies reported.

Four months of internationally-mediated talks on Kosovo, which ended last week, produced no compromise between Serbia and Kosovo's Albanians on Kosovo's future status.

(Additional reporting by correspondents in Pristina, Nicosia, Belgrade, Moscow, United Nations, Washington, Paris and Ostrava; Writing by Mark John; editing by Kevin Liffey)



© Reuters2007All rights reserved

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/ ... me=topNews

It is possible Cyprus may be the only one still holding out by now, but as I said last week, with a little "back door" dealings with the UN regarding limiting the lifting of isolation in the "TRNC" to help Turkey open her ports to Cyprus, Cyprus may also come around, at the expense of the "TRNC".[/quote]

[Expatkiwi]

Bill,Cyprus was better off under British rule than it was under the Venetians & the Ottoman Empire.If it wasn't for the British,there wouldn't even be a country called Cyprus today.

The British Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri & Dhekelia are legally British colonies,as are the Falkland Islands & Gibraltar.

Although I live in New Zealand,I am still a very fierce British Commonwealth nationalist who believes that both Cameroon & Mozambique should be expelled from the British Commonwealth,& that both Somaliland & Ireland should be admitted back into the British Commonwealth,along with Zimbabwe,once Robert 'Crackpot Bob' Mugabe & his subhuman Z.A.N.U.-P.F. regime are overthrown.

Aidan.

Hear Hear! Ian Smith was a better man and leader than Robert Mugabe ever will be...